To Kill a Mockingbird
Essay Topics
Directions: Write an informational essay (2-3 typed pages) on one of the following topics dealing with Harper
Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Your essay must make a claim about the topic and support that claim with
specific evidence from the novel. Your essay will be scored using the FSA Informational writing rubric.
Process and Timeline:
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Choose a topic.
Completed by March 17
Read the novel.
March 16-April 17
Complete Cornell notes while you read the novel. March 16-April 17
Final novel test.
Week of April 20
Write the essay.
April 20-May 1
o This is a homework assignment. Time to write the essay will NOT be provided in class.
Submit the final draft of the essay.
May 8
o Submit on teacherweb.com or by sharing with Mrs. Arguello via google drive.
Topic A – Innocence and Experience
What are the major life-lessons that the younger characters in the novel (Scout, Jem and Dill) absorb as part of
their coming-of-age in Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s?
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You may pick one or more of these young people to write about, and you will want to mention other kids in the
story as well such as Walter Cunningham, Little Chuck Little, Burris Ewell, Cecil Jacobs and Francis Hancock.
Topic B – Sources of Enmity (Tension)
What are the significant sources of tension between various characters in the novel and what price is paid by
certain characters for these problems?
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Sources of tension may include suspicion, mistrust, class prejudice, racial prejudice, snobbery, enmity, animosity,
hatred
For this topic, in addition to the younger characters mentioned above, you may want to concentrate on any of the
following adult characters: Old Mr. Radley, Nathan Radley, Boo Radley, Miss Stephanie Crawford, Miss Maudie
Atkinson, Atticus, Calpurnia, Lula, Zeebo, Reverend Sykes, Aunt Alexandra, Tom Robinson, Bob Ewell, Mayella
Ewell, Sheriff Heck Tate, Mr. Gilmer, Judge Taylor, Mr. Link Deas, Dolphus Raymond, Miss Merriweather, Mrs.
Farrow, Mr. Underwood.
Topic C – Aspects of Social Inequality
What does this novel have to teach us about the problem of human inequality and the divisions within human
society? Think about the various advantages and disadvantages that different characters have. Write about these specific
aspects of inequality in Maycomb, Alabama. Try to identify an underlying common lesson that unites each of these
characters.
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Your paper may choose to focus on characters such as Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, Bob Ewell, Mayella Ewell,
Burris Ewell, Mr. Cunningham, Walter Cunningham, Dill Harris, Dolphus Raymond or any of the other
characters mentioned above.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Reading Schedule
BRING YOUR NOVEL TO SCHOOL EVERYDAY.
This is the approximate schedule that we will follow to complete our reading of the novel. If you are absent,
you are responsible for reading the text that you missed.
While reading the chapters, you must complete Cornell notes with evidence to support your chosen essay topic.
Monday
March 16
Tuesday
March 17
Wednesday
March 18
Thursday
March 19
Friday
March 20
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 4-6
March 30
March 31
April 1
April 2
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 10-12
Chapters 10-12
April 6
April 7
April 8
April 9
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-18
Chapters 16-18
April 13
April 14
April 15
April 16
Chapters 23-26
Chapters 23-26
Chapters 27-31
Chapters 27-31
April 20
Finish and review
novel
April 21
Finish and review
novel
April 22
Finish and review
novel
April 23
April 27
April 28
April 29
April 30
Homework: Write
essay
Homework: Write
essay
Homework: Write Homework: Write
essay
essay
Homework: Write
essay
May 4
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
Homework:
Write, Revise, and
Proofread essay
Homework:
Write, Revise, and
Proofread essay
Homework:
Write, Revise, and
Proofread essay
Homework:
Write, Revise, and
Proofread essay
LAST DAY TO
SUBMIT YOUR
ESSAY
Essays may be
submitted as soon
as completed.
Essays may be
submitted as soon
as completed.
Essays may be
submitted as soon
as completed.
Essays may be
submitted as soon
as completed.
ESSAYS RECEIVED
AFTER THIS DATE
WILL EARN A
GRADE OF ZERO.
April 3
April 10
April 17
April 24
Final Novel
Test
May 1
Topic A – Innocence and Experience – Difficult Lessons of Youth
The three main children characters react in different ways to the trial of Tom Robinson – and take from it
different lessons about the world; Dill who identifies strongly with Tom responds with panic and paranoia; Jem
becomes cynical and disillusioned with the justice system, while Scout (perhaps like Harper Lee herself)
remains accepting and hopeful about the possibilities of social change.
The children in the novel – Scout, Jem and Dill in particular – learn harsh lessons about the ways in which
small towns and other close-knit communities can sometimes marginalize and de-value individuals who do not
fit the mold. These three see what the older folks in the story are oblivious to: the loneliness and isolation that
certain social pariahs (Boo, Mayella, Dolphus and Tom) are forced to endure.
One of the big lessons that Scout learns in the story is how some children are branded from an early age as
“acceptable” or “unacceptable” based on conditions and circumstances beyond their control. Aunt Alexandra’s
judgments – about the Radleys, the Cunninghams, the Ewells, Calpurnia, etc. – serve as the perfect foil to
Scout’s more mature insights.
Harper Lee identifies with the children in the novel more than the adults – with the possible exception of
Atticus. Like Scout, her sympathies lie with good-natured kids such as Dill Harris, andWalter Cunningham,
as well as the more problematic Cecil Jacobs and Mayella Ewell. From each of them, though in different
respects, we learn about the need for maintaining “dignity in the midst of squalor” or as Hemingway would say
“grace under pressure.”
Topic B – Sources of Enmity (Ill-Will, Mistrust, Prejudice, Hatred, Animosity)
The novel deals most obviously with racial prejudice, but the greater lesson has to do with class differences
and how a person’s inherited social status – or what Aunt Alexandra calls “heredity” – unfairly determines
how individuals are treated by others.
Perhaps the major underlying sources of friction within the community are the economic hardships and
uncertainties wrought by the Great Depression; the novel can be seen as a parable about how certain people
react in extreme circumstances, some with fear, mistrust and suspicion, others with fair-play, generosity and
good-will.
The real source of tension in Maycomb is the ongoing rift between the country folk – poor white farmers who
have been “hit the hardest” by the economic catastrophe and the city folk – merchants and professionals who
are desperate to avoid slipping into absolute poverty. Caught in the middle of all this are the innocent
characters – Boo Radley, Tom Robinson and Dolphus Raymond – who are just trying to mind their own
business.
Topic C – Dimensions of Social Inequality
Like other social protest novels, this novel makes a special case for the ideal of social equality – as a basic
dignity that the law affords to all citizens, local or otherwise; the array of misfit characters including Tom
Robinson, Boo Radley, Dolphus Raymond, Dill and even Mayella Ewell – each in their own way, show us the
price that must be paid when the true meaning of democracy (“equal rights for all, special privileges for
none”) is forgotten.
Maycomb, Alabama – although fictional – is a microcosm for all the petty snobberies and prejudgments that
exist in small towns all over America; while Harper Lee goes to great lengths to show the “logic” behind the
existing social order, she is also brutally honest in exposing its shortcomings. [We see this most specifically in
the struggles of Mayella Ewell, Walter Cunningham and Dolphus Raymond.]
More than anything else, To Kill a Mockingbird is a book about the need for education, for literacy, and the
advantages of literacy as the guarantor of equality and social mobility. The characters who value education
(Scout, Atticus and Miss Maudie) are also the most generous and magnanimous in their treatment of others; the
characters who disparage learning (Bob Ewell, Mayella Ewell and Aunt Alexandra) are more fearful and
suspicious of others.